Night of the Animated Dead (2021)

Night of the Animated DeadNight of the Animated Dead (2021) is an adult animated horror film directed by Jason Axinn (who also made To Your Last Death). It follows the pretty familiar story of the original movie (Night of the Living Dead from 1968 by George A. Romero): Barbara and her brother John are going to visit their father’s grave in a cemetery in Pennsylvania. Simultaneously, a zombie outbreak causes the corpses to reanimate all over the country, and when John is attacked by one of the zombies, Barbara flees to a nearby farmhouse. There she encounters other survivors, including Ben who also seeks shelter in that house. Barbara gets in a catatonic shock, while Ben must fight of zombies with a torch as it seems fire is their weakness. Then they discover Harry and his wife Helen, who is hiding in the basement with their injured daughter. Several people have decided to seek shelter in the farmhouse, but will they be able to keep the zombies out?

 

The film was animated by Demente Animation Studio, and on their website it’s clearly listed that this movie was made on a limited budget. And it shows. The animation leaves a lot to be desired, and while it’s made in the traditional and quite time-consuming 2D animation style the movie suffers a bit from not having had a considerably bigger budget to flesh out the animation a lot more. There’s no doubt that the animators had to prioritize certain scenes over the overall product, pretty much like many of the old cartoons where the majority of an episode had very limited animation and movement while action and fight scenes looked nice (most of which were often used in the opening intros of the series, so you literally watched the best parts while listening to the theme songs). It’s obvious that the limited budget put a lot of restraints of how well this could be made, and the final product suffers from it. That being said, there are some decent scenes and particularly the gory ones are pretty good.

 

Overall, Night of the Animated Dead is more a movie you watch mostly for curiosity’s sake, as unfortunately it feels kind of redundant since it basically just retells the original story. Perhaps it would have been far more interesting if it was made in a completely different way to the original, maybe playing a lot more on the gore scenes because those were definitely the movie’s highlights. An interesting watch overall, but Jason Axinn’s previous film To Your Last Death is far superior compared to this one.

 

The movie is distributed by Warner Bros, and was released on DVD and Blu-ray in 2021. It is also widely available on several streaming sites.

 

Night of the Animated Dead Night of the Animated Dead Night of the Animated Dead

 

Director: Jason Axinn
Writers: George A. Romero, John A. Russo (based on their original script)
Country & year: USA, 2021
Voice actors: Josh Duhamel, Dulé Hill, Katharine Isabelle, James Roday Rodriguez, Katee Sackhoff, Will Sasso, Jimmi Simpson, Nancy Travis, Stefan Marks, William Calvert, Chris Edgerly
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14961110/

 

 

Vanja Ghoul

 

 

 

 

 

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006)

Nazis at the Center of the EarthHave you always wondered why every damn serial killer in slasher movies tends to walk after their victims, like they’re about to shit their pants, rather than running? Well, Leslie Vernon (Nathan Baesel) is finally here to explain.

 

Being a top-tier serial killer like Freddy Krueger, Jason Vorhees, Michael Myers or Art the Clown, is not just about grabbing a weapon and going on a killing-spree, you see. A ton of preparation, planning and complex study of the chosen victims to the final girl has to be examined to the smallest details. And be sure to eat well and do your cardio exercise regularly, cause this is not a job for out-of-shape lard asses.

 

A small group of young film students led by Taylor (Angela Goethals) has gotten the privilege to follow the aspiring serial killer Leslie Vernon. He’s a month away from his upcoming murder-spree where he’s planning to kill a group of kids while they are having a party in an old abandoned house, and the film crew are invited to document the whole process. Sounds like the standard slasher premise we’ve seen two thousand times already. Vernon looks like a little brother of Andrew Divoff and Michael C. Hall, and like his role models, he has a tragic backstory to paint his alter ego with. We get a never-seen-before glimpse of the secret underworld of serial killers when the film crew gets to meet Vernon’s best friend and colleague, Eugene (Scott Wilson). He’s a retired veteran and has learned Vernon some tricks. We don’t know much of Eugene’s many roles in the slasher arena throughout the decades other than there’s some theory that he’s actually Billy Lenz, the unseen killer from Black Christmas (1974). C o o l. He also shares his dark past and double-life in a happy marriage… while he sleeps in a tank under the ground outside the house.

 

We also met Dr. Halloran (Robert Englund), the film’s version of Dr. Loomis if you will, who once treated Leslie Vernon and now is on his tail to chase him down. I find zero joy in saying this, but it’s not wrong to point out that Robert Englund has appeared in a string of terrible dogshit films during the last 10, 15, 20 years or so, and this is one of the very few watch-worthy flicks he’s in, post Freddy. We see Zelda Rubinstein as a librarian, her final role before she passed away four years later, and wandered into the light.

 

The film is mostly presented as a raw, handheld documentary with segments that switch back and forth to conventional. This may take some of the edge off, but this is not a film to take seriously to begin with, and Behind the Mask is overall a clever and entertaining satire on the cheesy slasher genre that dominated the 1980s. It’s also, of course, a big plus if you’re a big fan of the genre and have seen most of the catalogs of slashers from that era and its resurgence after the mid 90s. If not, the inside-jokes and the references will fly over your head while you’re just sitting and waiting for the blood’n gore which there’s not much focus on.

 

And one thing is for certain: You’ll never be able to watch a body-count slasher in the same way ever again.

 

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon

 

Director: Scott Glosserman
Writers: Scott Glosserman, David J. Stieve
Country & year: USA, 2012
Actors: Nathan Baesel, Angela Goethals, Robert Englund, Scott Wilson, Zelda Rubinstein, Bridgett Newton, Kate Miner, Ben Pace, Britain Spellings, Hart Turner, Krissy Carlson, Travis Zariwny
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0437857/

 

 

Tom Ghoul

 

 

 

Incident in a Ghostland (2018)

Incident in a GhostlandColleen and her two teenage daughters Beth and Vera are traveling to their recently deceased aunt’s house which they have inherited. On their way to the house, which is placed in a very secluded area, they stop by a gas station where Beth reads an article about some recent home invasions where parents have been killed, and daughters spared. When driving towards the house, they are being stalked by some people driving a candy truck. They barely have time to settle in the strange house which is filled with dolls and odd knickknacks, when a huge mentally impaired man (Fat Man) an a transvestite (Candy Truck Woman) breaks into the house and attack them. Vera is assaulted by the Fat Man, while Beth tries to escape but is captured by the Candy Truck Woman who says We just wanna play with dolls. The intrudes are then killed by Colleen.

 

Fast forward sixteen years later, Beth has become a successful horror writer and lives in Chicago with her husband and son. Her new novel is titled Incident in a Ghostland, and she appears on a talk show to promote it and says that it’s based on what happened that night. Later, she receives a phonecall from her sister Vera, who begs her to return to the house. Vera and Colleen have been living there ever since the incident, and Vera has since been unable to recover from the trauma. When Beth arrives back at the house, she finds that Vera is still tormented by Fat Man and Candy Truck Woman.

 

Ghostland (aka Incident in a Ghostland) is a psychological horror film from 2018, written and directed by Pascal Laugier (Martyrs, The Tall Man). It’s a movie that at first seems to be very straightforward, and then proves to be something completely different. It’s also a movie where you should avoid any spoilers, as they may potentially ruin some of the experience, because there are a fair amount of twists and turns here.

 

Ghostland plays heavily on making the surroundings as strange and atmospheric as possible, with the deceased aunt’s house filled with creepy dolls and dark hallways. The characters are pretty good, but best of all are of course the villains. The Candy Truck Woman (played by Kevin Power) and the Fat Man (played by Rob Archer) looks like some kind of fantasy-nightmare where Marilyn Manson has teamed up with Goonies-Sloth’s big bad brother. It’s also quite fitting how the two sisters, where Vera is grounded in reality while Beth has her feet more planted into fairytaleland, describe the murderers in the way they see them: Beth’s version of them is a witch and an ogre, while Vera’s true to nature description is simply two men in a fucking truck! where both are actually a fitting description for the menaced killers. Personally, I guess I would have gone for witch and ogre too…

 

There was an unfortunate real incident in this ghostland: the actress who played Vera, Taylor Hickson, got a permanent facial disfigurement during the shooting of the film, for which she sued the film’s production company over due to lost work as a result of her permanent scars.

 

Ghostland does have some disturbing moments, which shouldn’t come as a surprise since it’s made by the same guy who gave us Martyrs. Despite its somewhat Halloween-ish looks it’s far from being a comfort-horror due to the sexual abuse and psychological terror the girls are going through, but it is a suspenseful and twisty movie with a lot of atmosphere, and I recommend going in blindly if you want to check it out.

 

Incident in a Ghostland

 

Writers and director: Pascal Laugier
Country & year: Canada/France, 2018
Also known as: Ghostland
Actors: Crystal Reed, Mylène Farmer, Anastasia Phillips, Emilia Jones, Taylor Hickson, Kevin Power, Rob Archer, Mariam Bernstein, Alicia Johnston, Ernesto Griffith, Adam Hurtig, Denis Cozzi
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6195094/

 

 

Vanja Ghoul

 

 

 

 

 

Frankenstein Island (1981)

Frankenstein IslandThe director, Jerry Warren, woke up one day and saw some hot air balloons from his window. He picked up his potato camera, pushed the rec-button, and maybe hoped he could use it in some future project. And so he did. C o o l.

 

Then we cut to a group of middle-aged men who have crash-landed with the balloons on some island. After some exploring, they stumble into some natives who only consist of young, slim ladies. They only cover their tits and asses with some leopard-bikini-clad. And they seem to have easy access to shampoo. Welcome to the wildlife.

 

You are pretty, one of the ladies says. And no, this is not really a porno, this is supposed to be a Sci-Fi horror film, if you haven’t already figured it out. They have some weird ritualistic dances as if they were high on bath salt while our group of men drools at them. Every man’s wet fantasy seems to have come true … or maybe not. Because there is a shocking secret to be revealed about these ladies later. One of the ladies gets suddenly kidnapped by a goofy-looking guy in jeans and a beanie who looks pretty much like the twin brother of Bubbles from Trailer Park Boys.

 

It’s impossible to try explaining what’s really happening here. The film is so bafflingly absurd that anyone would get a serious brain fart if trying to find a breadcrumb of logic.

 

Our men get met by two other dudes who just randomly pop up behind some bushes – one old bearded grandpa with a cane and a guy with a pirate patch. And both of these guys look like two hardcore alcoholics who have zero business being on a movie set. The strong odor of piss, sweat, booze and old spice really reeks. The one with the patch laughs all the time, drinks from every bottle he can find, and I would assume that the guy was completely hammered for real during the filming. Oliver Reed would be impressed. Because there is no freaking way that any actors near this production could act drunk so naturally as we see here. There’s also a scene where he seems to black-out as he sits by a table and the camera just keeps rolling in case he wakes up. Spoiler alert: some ten moments later he wakes up, just barely.

 

Frankenstein Island

 

400 words in, and I haven’t even got to break down the premise. Maybe because there hardly aren’t any. But like in a crowded bar somewhere in Wisconsin on a Wednesday night, a lot of unpredictable shit is bound to happen. And if a celluloid can get drunk, here you have the result. It’s incoherent, messy, absurd, bizarre and out-of-control all the way to the very last pub goer who refuses to leave after closing time. Just one more drink. One more. Burp. Okay then: We have a cheap-looking lab where an old and-ready-to-die Dr. Von (yes, with an o) Helsing lies in a hospital bed, looking confused. Who could blame him. We have some random silly scenes with more Trailer Park Boys-looking weirdos who swing with the cheapest Halloween Devil Fork the budget allowed to spend. We see a glimpse of some creepy mannequin, just because, some drops of acid-trip images, and, of course, we have Dr. Frankenstein, the man of the hour himself. Here he’s played by John Carradine, where he only pops up randomly as a hologram while he’s rambling a string of demented and nonsensical words. If his lines weren’t cryptic enough, they always end with The power… The power… The power… The power…!

 

Man, this movie…

 

And yes, we actually have a Frankenstein monster shoe-horned in here, just to put the little, golden raspberry on the top. He pops up randomly just in time to join the classic fight scene in the laboratory. And this fight scene is something else, where the retard-o-meter goes all up and even through the ceiling. It’s even worse than the catfight scene in Manos: The Hands of Fate. The best way to describe the insanity is as if there was a blind dance coordinator on the set instead of a stunt/fight coordinator. The monster also keeps arm-swatting constantly as if there was a fly in front of his face that wouldn’t leave him alone. I wouldn’t be surprised if he accidentally smacked several of his co-actors. And the legend says that he’s still to this day trying to swat that fly.

 

The film is written, directed and produced by the same mastermind who made Teenage Zombies (1959), The Wild World of Batwoman (1966) and other public-domain classics. The most amusing thing here is that Frankenstein Island was made after Jerry Warren took a ten-year hiatus from filmmaking. And during those ten years, plus five years prior, he didn’t watch a single film and had zero sense of the pulse of the horror movie business – other than he had heard rumors that horror films were profitable again (thanks to the rise of the slasher genre). The guy clearly lived in his own small bubble, completely out of touch deep in a fantasy world where the only movies that existed were his own, and thought that a film like Frankenstein Island would rise his ego. Never heard the term zeitgeist either, I would guess. The even more amusing, if not just tragicomic, is the matter of fact that Frankenstein Island looks like something from the 1950s alongside with Teenage Zombies, produced by Ed Wood. It’s so hilariously and just painfully dated, almost to an impressive level. Without knowing any of this beforehand, I’d rather believe that the Earth is flat than that this was made the same year as Halloween II.

 

Warren also wanted to make a sequel to Frankenstein Island which he described as more up-to-date, not so campy and old-time. I would even pay a hundred bucks to see that film, but unfortunately Warren died in 1988, two months before John Carradine. Double RIP. The one and only DVD release of the film is out of print and very pricey. It’s also available on Tubi.

 

Frankenstein Island Frankenstein Island Frankenstein Island

 

 

Writer and director: Jerry Warren
Country & year: USA, 1981
Actors: Robert Clarke, Steve Brodie, Cameron Mitchell, Robert Christopher, Tain Bodkin, Patrick O’Neil, Andrew Duggan, John Carradine, Katherine Victor, G.J. Mitchell
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082410/

 

 

Tom Ghoul

 

 

 

PUMPKIN BOY – Horror Short

Three boys are punished for smashing pumpkins.

 

Horror Short Sunday is here again, and Halloween is getting near! Today we’re taking a look at Pumpkin Boy, which is a horror short with some really cool stop motion effects! The creator also has a “behind the scenes” video on his YouTube channel.

 

PUMPKIN BOY - Horror Short

 

Director: Trent Shy
Country & year: Australia, 2022
Letterboxd: letterboxd.com/film/pumpkin-boy/

 

 

 

 

The Legacy (1978)

The LegacyMargaret (Maggie) Walsh and her boyfriend Pete Danner are interior decorators, and currently busy with a client in California. One day Maggie receives a large financial retainer from an anonymous client in Britain, but they can’t really leave because of their current obligations. Then, their client in California suddenly dies under mysterious circumstances. Well, off to England then! They end up in a rambling country estate: Ravenhurst. The place is owned by Jason Mountolive, who has invited several potential heirs to his estate. Jason is dying, and he wants someone to take over when he’s gone. All the guests also have to wear a signet ring with the Mountolive family crest upon it, and Maggie discovers that she cannot take it off. Maggie and Pete then decide this all looks shady as hell, and leaves the place. Except no matter how much they drive around, they always end up back at the Ravenhurst grounds. They cannot leave…and must stay until the heir has been chosen. And then the guests start dying…

 

The Legacy is a horror film from 1978, directed by Richard Marguand in his directorial debut. The Ravenhurst mansion is the musician Roger Daltrey’s residence, and he lent out the building for the movie on the condition that he would be a co-star in it, and he plays a character called Clive Jackson. There’s also a novel, but here’s a twist: the novel is based on the movie, and not vice versa. It was released in 1979.

 

The movie is a mystery-fueled occult horror film, where characters are dying one by one under mysterious circumstances. Despite having several kills, the movie is not at all gory. There’s several inventive death scenes, although they do lack a bit of buildup to be properly effective. The most chilling death scene is the one involving the Clive Jackson character, where he is choking on a chicken bone (despite not having eaten any chicken) and it all ends up with a botched attempt at tracheotomy. Other deaths includes a mirror that explodes and the glass shards kill the person in front of it, a fireplace that suddenly shoots out a large deadly flame, and of course a swimming pool death. The film shows pretty early that there are supernatural elements at force here, and several of the death scenes are obviously not done by human hands alone. There’s several body counts here that needs to be disposed of, and let’s just say that there are some rottweilers that aren’t going hungry. It’s always nice to have some pets that can take care of certain business matters. Speaking of animals, there’s also a mysterious white cat with heterochromia (one blue and one green eye).

 

While you don’t really wonder who will be the survivor considering we have a very clear protagonist here, the story is kept intriguing due to the mystery about why the other people are killed off and what the deal with everything here really is. The location with the English countryside, and the old mansion’s exterior and interior sets a spooky haunted-house like atmosphere. The pacing is actually quite good, where there’s a gradual build-up and a heightened sense of mystery. So overall, The Legacy is a 70’s supernatural horror film that’s worth checking out, with some great atmosphere and fun kills. And of course, the also that adorable white cat!

 

Here’s a sweet little fun fact: Sam Elliot (who played Pete) and Katharine Ross (who played Maggie) fell in love for real when they co-starred in this movie, and married in 1984 and are still a couple to this day. Aww.

 

The Legacy The Legacy The Legacy

 

Director: Richard Marquand
Writers: Jimmy Sangster, Patrick Tilley, Paul Wheeler
Country & year: UK, 1978
Actors: Katharine Ross, Sam Elliott, John Standing, Ian Hogg, Margaret Tyzack, Charles Gray, Lee Montague, Hildegard Neil, Marianne Broome, William Abney, Patsy Smart, Mathias Kilroy
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079450/

 

 

Vanja Ghoul

 

 

 

 

 

The Sentinel (1977)

The SentinelAlison Parker (Cristina Raines) is a young, independent fashion model who’s looking forward to starting a new life after years of trauma due to some serious daddy issues. Because when she was a schoolgirl she accidentally caught her dad in the act of having a festive orgy with some fugly, meaty ladies. Just to make it more bizarre, they were also eating cake. Ouch, those poor, innocent eyes. Watching someone’s own parents having sex can be a horrific enough sight that stays with you forever, but Alison went straight into panic mode by locking herself in the bathroom where she tried to kill herself by slicing her wrist.

 

Her dad is now dead from cancer, and life goes on. She rents an apartment in an old brownstone apartment complex in Brooklyn Heights. Allison spots a mysterious person sitting by the window on the top floor of the building. We soon learn that he’s an old blind priest (John Carradine) who’s lived there for years. And he just sits there, day and night, like a statue and is not to be bothered. Does he ever eat or take a piss? Huh… OK, whatever. People are strange, as Jim Morrison once said.

 

If the vibe wasn’t eerie enough already, things get weirder when she settles in the complex. Because here she meets her new neighbors – a group of eccentric bohemian-acting hippie weirdos who you just want to distance yourself from and let them mind their own business. We have this older over-the-top jovial gentleman who acts like he’s cosplaying The Mad Hatter. We meet a ballerina coach with some big bosoms and a blond mute who, just out of the blue, masturbates like a psychotic freak on the couch, in front of a confused and startled Allison. What a day!

 

Things get crazier at night when Allison is trying to get her beauty sleep. She hears weird noises while the chandelier in her bedroom swings. Spooky. It’s after all an old building, so maybe just some harmless ghosts are wandering by. After walking around in a tiny, sexy nightdress and a flashlight, she gets attacked by none other than a zombiefied version of her dead father. So, where did he come from, and what is it with that mysterious dude who just sits up there by the window? It’s soon time to find out, as she continues to get tormented by visions that start to break down her psyche.

 

The Sentinel is directed and co-written by the British gentleman Michael Winner (1935-2013), who also made the first three Death Wish films, which explains the thick layer of sleaze, nudity and maybe some white powder floating in the air. This is actually the only horror film he made, based on a novel by Jeffrey Konvits, who co-wrote the script. Lucio Fulci clearly borrowed some key aspects from The Sentinel when he made The Beyond (1981). It also has its parallels to Rosemary’s Baby, but besides the old apartment setting with the weird neighbors, the premises are moons apart.

 

The Sentinel is also known for its all-star cast. While Cristina Raines was relatively unknown, we have old veterans like Martin Balsam, Ava Gardner, Burges Meredith, John Carradine, to fresh newcomers like Christopher Walken, Jeff Goldblum, and Beverly D’Angelo in her first film role. At the end of the film, we can also see Tom Berenger in his first screen presence. The only person missing here is Maxine Minx.

 

All scenes, except for the final one, are shot on location. The dusty, cobweb-filled attic is the real attic of the building. No sets were built. The interior of the building is the actual interior of the Brooklyn building, something you rarely see in a Hollywood studio film, especially these days. Even the boobs you see here — are real! Isn’t that interesting. The residents who lived in the building were paid to stay in a hotel while shooting. Only Hollywood would have the budget for that alone.

 

Another real aspect here are ( —SPOILER WARNING— ) the deformed people we see popping up from Hell in the zany climax. We have some real circus freaks here which stirred some controversies, even in 1977. According to the commentary track on the Blu-ray, director Michael Winner assures us that they had a real fun time during the filming of this segment. The same could not be said by Chris Sarandon though, who had such a miserable experience on set that he considered quitting acting altogether.

 

While The Sentinel isn’t much of a scary movie, it has a spooky atmosphere with a cryptic mystery to be solved. The tone is quite bizarre in some scenes, which go pretty overboard at the climax. Writer Jeffrey Konvitz was not particularly happy with this, as he wanted a far more subtle approach to the material. I see what he means, but the film is overall an entertaining and solid 70s supernatural oddball-flick with some uniqueness to it. Some obvious scenes were, of course, cut from the theatrical release, but are available in its full flesh version on Blu-ray from Shout! Factory. The commentary track by Michael Winner is also pretty funny and jovial, to say the least, where he gives a series of interesting anecdotes about film biz and more juicy stuff. Winner died two years after the release of the Blu-ray at age 77. RIP.

 

The Sentinel The Sentinel The Sentinel

 

 

Director: Michael Winner
Writer: Michael Winner, Jeffrey Konvitz
Country & year: USA, 1977
Actors: Chris Sarandon, Cristina Raines, Martin Balsam, John Carradine, José Ferrer, Ava Gardner, Arthur Kennedy, Burgess Meredith, Sylvia Miles, Jeff Goldblum, Christopher Walken, Beverly D’Angelo
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076683/

 

 

Tom Ghoul

 

 

 

 

 

Der Golem (1920)

Der GolemWe’re in the Jewish ghetto of medieval Prague, where Rabbi Loew has taken a look at the stars which predicts a disaster for his people. He immediately informs the elders, and the next day the Holy Roman Emperor signs a decree declaring that all the Jews must leave the city before the new moon. An arrogant young man named Florian is sent to deliver it, and upon arriving in the ghetto he falls in love with Miriam, Loew’s daughter. Love-triangle-drama ensues: Loew’s assistant also has feelings for her. Loew, on the other hand, has begun creating a Golem, which is a huge man-creature made of clay. He wants to bring this creature to life in order to defend his people. During a magical ritual, Loew and his assistant summon the demon Astaroth, and makes him wake the Golem to life. Now, Loew finally has an awkward household servant, and something that will protect his people. Things appear to go smoothly at first…but soon, the Golem starts to behave erratically…

 

The Golem: How He Came into the World (original tite: Der Golem, wie er in de Welt kam, aka Der Golem) is a German silent horror film from 1920. It is one of the leading examples of early German expressionism, directed by Paul Wegener and co directed by Carl Boese. The script was co-written with Henrik Galeen, and it’s based on a novel from 1915 by Gustav Meyrink. The film was shot at the Tempelhof Studios in Berlin, and became a great success in Germany and played for full theaters for two months straight. A year later the film was released in the United States, also to packed houses and was the longest-running movie that year. It even started what was referred to as the golem-cult, which spun several golem-related media and adaptions. There were hardcore fanbases even in the 1920’s, it seems.

 

The charm of Der Golem is without a doubt the visual style. The set pieces are a blend of medieval gothic mixed with a surreal flair. The expressionist tone with all the artistic sets puts it in the same league as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), although not quite as stylized. But holy cow, the work they did on that village is absolutely stunning! The crooked and twisted little houses that makes up the ghetto looks like something straight out of a gothic fairytale, not to mention the interior shots which are very inventive and full of style and atmosphere. The movie is definitely a visual treat, with a cinematic world-building that’s outright stunning. The Golem himself is also pretty well made, using a costume with platform-shoes to make him look a lot bigger than everyone else, and he does look quite intimidating at times. He is also played by Paul Wegener, the director himself, who really uses his stern facial expression to let everyone know that the Golem doesn’t take shit from anyone.

 

Der Golem is by many considered a precursor to Frankenstein (1931) and it’s easy to see why. The Golem is both a great movie monster, tragic in many ways just as the Frankenstein monster, having been brought to a world that he can not really fit into. Frankenstein was a result if science, while the Golem was a result of magic, but the tragic results remain the same. Despite the underlying tragic fate of the titular character, the movie is whimsical as much as it is dark.

 

Der Golem was actually the third film in a trilogy, the first being The Golem (1914) and the short The Golem and the Dancing Girl (1917) and is a prequel to the first film. Unfortunately, the other two films have been lost.

 

Der Golem Der Golem

 

 

Directors: Paul Wegener, Carl Boese
Writers: Paul Wegener, Henrik Galeen
Also known as: The Golem: How He Came into the World
Country & year: Germany, 1920
Actors: Paul Wegener, Albert Steinrück, Lyda Salmonova, Ernst Deutsch, Hans Stürm, Max Kronert, Otto Gebühr, Dore Paetzold, Lothar Müthel, Greta Schröder, Loni Nest
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0011237/

 

 

Vanja Ghoul

 

 

 

 

 

Grandmother’s House (1988)

Grandmother's HouseTwo siblings, David and Lynn, are orphaned after their father dies unexpectedly. They are sent to live with their grandparents who resides in a victorian home somewhere in rural California. When David and Lynn were very young, they lived in that house together with their mother, but of this they have few memories and everything from that time is a blur. When they travel to their new home, a creepy woman is standing in the middle of the road and almost causes the bus driver to have an accident. Weird…but nothing much to reflect on, right? Creepy people are everywhere. And talking about creepy people, when the siblings meet with their grandparents, they feel that something is very, very off about them. Sure, they’re sweet and nice and all that, just like grandparents ought to be, but…something’s not right. And during their first night in the house, David has a nightmare where he witnesses his grandfather killing a woman.

 

Grandmother’s House (aka Grandma’s House) is a slasher film from 1988 directed by Peter Rader (writer of Waterworld) as his directorial debut. And it sure is a little bit of an oddball movie, with twists and turns that makes it an unpredictable watch, at least if you haven’t read any spoilers beforehand. I’ll do my best to avoid them here in the review.

 

The movie starts off with a well-trodden trope: children lose their parent, and must come and live somewhere else where things are strange and unfamiliar. A setup like this has often been used in everything from children’s movies to horror, so nothing new here. And while the grandparents seem loving and sweet, you notice that something is off, of course. It plays along with a mystery-fueled setting where certain scenes and character behavior makes everything seem even more off. While it’s apparent after watching it that several scenes and setups are made to deliberately confuse you, with the bright setting of sunlit days and a beautiful orange orchards and other picturesque locations. Yup, the countryside is indeed beautiful. It does actually feel a bit dreamlike at times, and while the mystery keeps building and you feel you know what it’s going to reveal, it still ends up surprising you. And yes, despite a somewhat slow build-up it eventually slams into full psycho-killer territory.

 

Overall, Grandmother’s House is an obscure slasher flick that despite a bit of clunkiness, provides enough surprises and twists to be entertaining and worth a watch. Best to go in blind, though, as knowing too much about the plot and turn of events beforehand is likely to ruin the experience a bit.

 

Grandmother’s House was restored and released on DVD and Blu-ray by Vinegar Syndrome and 88 Films.

 

Grandmother's House

 

Director: Peter Rader
Writers: Peter Jensen, Gayle Jensen,
Country & year: USA, 1988
Actors: Eric Foster, Kim Valentine, Len Lesser, Ida Lee, Brinke Stevens, Michael Robinson, Craig Yerman, David Donham, Joan-Carol Bensen
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097455/

 

 

Vanja Ghoul

 

 

 

 

 

Sleepwalkers (1992)

SleepwalkersCharles Brady and his mother Mary (who is also his lover) are shapeshifting energy vampires who needs to feed off virgin women. They can look like normal humans, but can also transform into big werecat-looking creatures which is their natural form. They also have a lot of powers: they can use telekinesis, and the power of illusion. So what could be their weakness? Well, it’s not a stake through the heart, garlic or silver bullets: it’s simply domestic cats. Yup, cats are their only real threat as the cats can see though their illusion and bullshit and will violently attack them, inflicting fatal wounds. So naturally, Brady and his mother are cat haters. They move around a lot, since they often leave a trail of dead bodies behind and need to avoid too much attention. Now they have come to live in Travis, a small Indiana town, after recently fleeing from Bodega Bay in California. At school, Brady meets Tanya Robertson and she believes she’s met a handsome boy with a romantic interest in her. If she only knew…

 

Sleepwalkers is a horror film from 1992 written by Stephen King and directed by Mick Garris. This movie was the first time when Stephen King wrote a screenplay intended for a movie rather than adapting one of his novels. It was originally supposed to be directed by Rupert Wainwright as Columbia Pictures initially approached him, but King insisted they offered the film to Mick Garris instead, who had previously directed Critters 2: The Main Course (1988) and Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990).

 

Sleepwalkers is a creature feature that derives a bit from the norm, as it is told from the perspective of the creatures themselves. They just want to spend the day making love to each other (despite being mother and son), kill cats who are their mortal enemies and suck the lifeforce out of virgins to keep themselves sustained. The movie is quite silly at times, with some odd dialogue, especially by the Sleepwalker Charles. There’s a lot of tacky one-liners like This doesn’t have to hurt. Just think of yourself as lunch! and of course the Cop Kabob! line during Andy’s murder. They almost went into full Garbage day! territory here, that’s for sure. On top of that, there’s also the “death by corn cob” scene. Yeah…it’s not a movie you should take too seriously. The effects are of course quite dated when it comes to the CGI ones, but the practical effects are decent enough. It’s still that famous CGI morphing scene in the car, which was probably cutting-edge at the time but now just enhances the campiness and makes it look even more silly than it already is. There’s also a scene where the Sleepwalkers are getting down and dirty, and this scene was originally so explicit that it had to be cut in order to avoid an X-rating.

 

Alice Krige plays the role as the mother Mary, a role Mick Garris wanted to cast after having seen her in Ghost Story (1981). Sleepwalkers is also the only movie where both Stephen King and Clive Barker are present in the same scene. These aren’t the only gag cameos however, we also have Joe Dante as a lab assistant, Tobe Hooper as a forensic tech, and John Landis as a lab technician. Ron Perlman (Hellboy) also plays a grumpy cop, and Glenn Shadix (who played Otis in Beetlejuice, and unfortunately died in 2010 so he could not reprise his role in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice) also has a role as Mr. Fallows, a creepy teacher. So, yeah…lots of well-known faces and names on the cast list for sure. And then, of course, there’s the biggest hero of all in this movie: Clovis the cat. This feline is owned by a police man named Andy Simpson, and follows him around in the police car. Quite the duo, those two! When Andy is killed by Charles, Clovis manages to wound him severely. Of course, the mourning kitty decides to revenge his deceased owner, with the help of other cats.

 

Sleepwalkers is by no means any masterpiece, but it’s a cheesy enjoyable B-movie with gore, cute cats and silly monsters that scores pretty high on the fun factor.

 

Sleepwalkers Sleepwalkers Sleepwalkers

 

Director: Mick Garris
Writer: Stephen King
Country & year: USA, 1992
Actors: Brian Krause, Mädchen Amick, Alice Krige, Jim Haynie, Cindy Pickett, Ron Perlman, Glenn Shadix, Cynthia Garris, Sparks. Cameos by John Landis, Joe Dante, Tobe Hooper, Stephen King and Clive Barker
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105428/

 

 

Vanja Ghoul